Drafts 4 - Legacy Version
4+

Newer Version Available

Screenshots

Description

Draft 5 is now available. Drafts 4 is still supported but not in active development. Please look for the free download of Drafts 5 using the developer link on this page, or visit getdrafts.com for more details.

What’s New

Version History

4.8.11

Nov 5, 2018

NOTE: Drafts 5 is now available. Visit getdrafts.com/upgrade for details.

- **New:** Support for new watch face complication types on the latest Apple Watches.- **New:** Support for the newest iPad screen sizes.

4.8.10

Jul 9, 2018

NOTE: Drafts 5 is now available. Visit getdrafts.com/upgrade for details.- Fix for Twitter account linking not working properly.

4.8.9

Jun 14, 2018

NOTE: Drafts 5 is now available. Visit getdrafts.com/upgrade for details.

- Remove third party crash log service and analytics.- Fix a couple of minor crashing bugs.

4.8.8

May 21, 2018

NOTE: Drafts 5 is now available. Visit getdrafts.com/upgrade for details.

- A few performance improvements on Apple Watch.

4.8.7

Apr 18, 2018

NOTE: Drafts 5 is now available. Visit getdrafts.com/upgrade for details.

- **Fix:** Address a few rare crashing bugs.

Help & Support: getdrafts.comNews and Tips: @draftsapp on Facebook and Twitter

4.8.6

Apr 16, 2018

- **Fix:** Address a few rare crashing bugs.

Help & Support: info@agiletortoise.comNews and Tips: @draftsapp on Facebook and Twitter

4.8.5

Help & Support: info@agiletortoise.comNews and Tips: @draftsapp on Facebook and Twitter

Review and ratings are always appreciated!

4.8.4

Jan 4, 2018

# New Apple Watch app!

In this release, the Watch app has been rebuilt from the ground up to be faster and more reliable, especially when the Watch is disconnected from the phone. The app now supports all available watch face complication sizes. Also notable, drafts captured on the Watch now store and maintain location information from the Watch at the time of capture.

Help & Support: info@agiletortoise.comNews and Tips: @draftsapp on Facebook and Twitter

Review and ratings are always appreciated!

4.8.3

Dec 6, 2017

- **Change:** Dark theme when running on the new phone is now really dark.- **Fix:** Attempts to address a timing issue where some actions on existing drafts on Watch could get lost.- **Change:** Update third party libraries and integration SDKs.- **Fix:** Possible fix for a couple of crashers.- **Change:** Tweaks to layout creation timing to try to fix occasional crasher.- **Change:** Darken initial startup screen.- **Change:** Make notification banners full width on phones.- **Fix:** "Hide extended keyboard" setting was not clearing background properly.- **Change:** Theme status bar area same as background.- **Fix:** Case where tweets longer than 140 characters would fail.

Help & Support: info@agiletortoise.comNews and Tips: @draftsapp on Facebook and Twitter

Review and ratings are always appreciated!

4.8.2

Oct 31, 2017

Fixing up a few iOS 11 issues and getting ready for the latest devices!

- **Update:** Improvement to layout of extended keyboard to work well with the latest devices.- **Fix:** "Clear" function in versions list would not properly delete all versions.- A few other minor updates and fixes.

Help & Support: info@agiletortoise.comNews and Tips: @draftsapp on Facebook and Twitter

Review and ratings are always appreciated!

4.8.1

Oct 14, 2017

Fixing up a few iOS 11 issues and getting ready for the latest devices!

- **Fix:** Locale passed in /dictate URL scheme would get ignored if previous selection to locale had been made.- **Fix:** Possible fix for iPad Autolayout crasher resulting in blank screen on launch for some users.- Misc. other tweaks to get ready for new devices and squash issues.

4.8.0

Twitter and Facebook APIs used by Drafts were removed by Apple in iOS 11. These features to support Twitter, Facebook and Social action steps. Due to this change, the following changes have been made in Drafts:

- Twitter actions no longer utilize the removed iOS interfaces, but connect directly to Twitter. Your Twitter account can be linked in Drafts Settings > Configure Accounts, or you will be prompted to login to Twitter the first time you use a Twitter action in the new version.- Posting to Facebook directly is no longer supported. If you have the Facebook app installed, the "Share" action can be used to post to Facebook with the Facebook app share extension.- Only one Twitter account is supported at this time.- "Social" action steps which use deprecated social features no longer function on iOS 11.

#### Other Changes

- **Change:** Built for iOS 11 with a variety of compatibility improvements/fixes.- **Change:** Drafts now requires iOS 10.3 or greater.

Help & Support: info@agiletortoise.comNews and Tips: @draftsapp on Facebook and Twitter

Review and ratings are always appreciated!

4.7.8

- **Fix:** Export action steps were not properly appending file extensions to files.- **Change:** Whitelist "ithoughts://" and a few other URLs to work in link mode. If you store URLs directly to other other apps in Drafts and they are not highlighted in link mode, please let us know with sample URLs and we'll get those added as well.- **Fix:** Appending/Prepending to files in Dropbox should not lose file metadata, like macOS labels.

Help & Support: info@agiletortoise.comNews and Tips: @draftsapp on Facebook and Twitter

Review and ratings are always appreciated!

4.7.7

- **New:** Reworked "Create new draft when returning after..." settings, adding additional options. The timeout for determining when a new draft is automatically created can now be configured from 30 seconds up to 30 minutes (or disabled, as always, with "Never").- **Fix:** Add "Share" icon to options selectable for actions.- **Change:** Update Dropbox integration SDK.- **Fix:** If an action is run on a blank (non-existent) draft an it calls "commit(draft);" the newly created draft should get loaded in the editor.

Help & Support: info@agiletortoise.comNews and Tips: @draftsapp on Facebook and Twitter

Review and ratings are always appreciated!

4.7.6

- **New:** Apple Watch now has options to prepend and append to drafts with Scribble in addition to dictation.- **Change:** A couple of minor visual tweaks in the Share extension.- **Fix:** Cleanup of a few VoiceOver labels on Apple Watch.- **Change:** If "Create new draft after" setting was set to "Never", Drafts would not enter editing mode on launch.- **Fix:** If a script step called "commit(draft);" it was possible subsequent steps in the same action which required a UI (prompt, email) would not appear properly.

Help & Support: info@agiletortoise.comNews and Tips: @draftsapp on Facebook and Twitter

Review and ratings are always appreciated!

4.7.5

- Drafts has been updated to use the Dropbox 2.0 API/SDK, in preparation for Dropbox discontinuing its 1.0 API in June. All Dropbox actions should continue to function without modification, but due to this change Dropbox users will need to re-link your Dropbox account in Settings > Configure Accounts after installing this update.- Apple Watch app now requires watchOS 3 or greater.

#### Other Changes

- **Change:** Watch advanced capture button now visible without scrolling for easier scribble access.- **Fix:** Running a script action which committed content changes on a previous blank draft would not update the draft in the editor.- **Fix:** Rework handling of sync conflicts to minimize redundant dialogs in some cases. Should improve some cases for users with the "Create new draft after" setting set to "Never".- **Fix:** Rare crasher with Watch connectivity (on iPhone)- **Fix:** Crash trying to backup keys if no key customizations exist.- **Fix:** Crash trying to backup actions if no action customizations exist.- **Fix:** Fix several VoiceOver labels in action editing screens.

Help & Support: info@agiletortoise.comNews and Tips: @draftsapp on Facebook and Twitter

Review and ratings are always appreciated!

4.7.4

- [Change] Syntax highlighting of Markdown headers now requires a space between the #s and the text to be more consistent with spec and avoid conflicts with hash tags.- [Fix] Case where top of draft text could be clipped on cold start with "Create new draft after" set to "Never".- [Fix] Text in share extension could get lost if moving to "append/prepend" view and returning to capture view.- [Fix] Prepend/Append Evernote actions might not update additional tag values set on the action.- [Fix] Misc. minor fixes.

Help & Support: info@agiletortoise.comNews and Tips: @draftsapp on Facebook and Twitter

Review and ratings are always appreciated!

4.7.3

- [New] Share extension will now read contents of a file if it is evoked with a file instead of text content.- [Change] Add error if attempting to capture blank text in Share extension.- [Change] Disable device sleep if dictation session is active.- [Fix] Possibly not 100% fixed, but the "blank keyboard" issue has been largely avoided with changes in this update.- [Fix] Address several rare crashers.- [Change] Tweaks to startup process to avoid possible hangs for some users.- [Change] Use better contrasting link color in Link Mode when using Dark theme.

Help & Support: info@agiletortoise.comNews and Tips: @draftsapp on Facebook and Twitter

Review and ratings are always appreciated!

4.7.2

- [Fix] Change to attempt to mitigate an issue where the keyboard can appear blank when launch Drafts on iOS 10. Still working on a permanent workaround/fix, but these changes help minimize the occurrence of the issue.- [Change] Dictation now opens with the last selected locale/language used in dictation pre-selected.- [Fix] Today widget display issues with some dynamic text settings.- [Fix] Do not double encode return parameter from /dictate URL (bug in last build).- [Fix] x-success on /dictate URL might not get proper outgoing params.- [Fix] Make sure Facebook basic permissions request does not happen unless Facebook action is used.- [Fix] Crash happening for some users with "Create new after" set to "Never".

Help & Support: info@agiletortoise.comNews and Tips: @draftsapp on Facebook and Twitter

### CHANGES AND IMPROVEMENTS- Improvements to Apple Watch app presentation and performance.- Reduce time delay when tapping an holding "+" for draft creation and import options.- Draft list improvements, includes change to system font, additional text preview visible, and removal of initial leading Markdown header characters.- Action list improvements, including change to system font.- Draft version history - under (i) draft details - now includes character counts and the ability to clear all previous versions.- If action has no steps, tapping on action detail will go directly to select a new step.- Improve display of spotlight results.- On iOS 10, 3D Touch shortcut items now show recent drafts instead of commands, which are redundant.- Update to the latest TextExpander Touch SDK.

### FIXES- Crash with invalid action import file.- Share extension would not allow prepend/append to a draft previously created in the extension until Drafts was launched.- Export action steps should not use "txt" as a default extension failback if none generated by options.

Help & Support: info@agiletortoise.comNews and Tips: @draftsapp on Facebook and Twitter

### CHANGES AND IMPROVEMENTS- Improvements to Apple Watch app presentation and performance.- Reduce time delay when tapping an holding "+" for draft creation and import options.- Draft list improvements, includes change to system font, additional text preview visible, and removal of initial leading Markdown header characters.- Action list improvements, including change to system font.- Draft version history - under (i) draft details - now includes character counts and the ability to clear all previous versions.- If action has no steps, tapping on action detail will go directly to select a new step.- Improve display of spotlight results.- On iOS 10, 3D Touch shortcut items now show recent drafts instead of commands, which are redundant.- Update to the latest TextExpander Touch SDK.

### FIXES- Crash with invalid action import file.- Share extension would not allow prepend/append to a draft previously created in the extension until Drafts was launched.- Export action steps should not use "txt" as a default extension failback if none generated by options.

Help & Support: info@agiletortoise.comNews and Tips: @draftsapp on Facebook and Twitter

4.6.1

- [Change] Disable meta tag generation in MultiMarkdown processor. Meta tag generation treated ":" in the first lines of the text as a meta tag and could cause unexpected errors outputting, especially to Evernote.- [Change] Hide keyboard button is now visible over keyboard even if hide extended keyboard is visible and has a new icon.- [Change] Improvements for landscape editing, especially on smaller devices.- [Fix] "Run Action" on multiple drafts selected in draft list should clear selection.- [Fix] Avoid issue where cursor appears mid-screen before typing on a cold start of the app. Sometimes.- [Fix] On first launch after install, "Inbox" should be selected in drafts list pane, not "All".- [Fix] On first launch after install, "Basic" action group should be selected in action pane, not "All".- [Fix] Mention iCloud Drive requirement in iCloud settings error.- [Fix] Rare crash in sync process.- [Fix] Workaround for "white keys on dark keyboard" issue in a few more places.- [Fix] Swiping through draft list tabs should include new Trash tab.- [Change] Tighten up the line height a little.

Help & Support: info@agiletortoise.comNews and Tips: @draftsapp on Facebook and Twitter

Review and ratings are always appreciated!

Nov 5, 2018

Version 4.8.11

NOTE: Drafts 5 is now available. Visit getdrafts.com/upgrade for details.

- **New:** Support for new watch face complication types on the latest Apple Watches.- **New:** Support for the newest iPad screen sizes.

Ratings and Reviews

4.5 out of 5

249 Ratings

249 Ratings

Lexicosm
,05/30/2018

Good, but missing a piece

Drafts 4 is missing one critical function, but it has satisfied a good chunk of my basic writing needs until now. Clean interface, useful special keyboard row, works well with Apple wireless keyboard. I have tried more than a dozen writing apps, including some of the pricier offerings, but Drafts 4 and 1Writer lead my list. Drafts is not a publishing tool, but it presents a full list of fonts, while 1Writer's developers short-changed that app with fewer than 20 typefaces — about one-third of which are monospace; go figure. So I have used Drafts 4 regularly. My one major criticism of Drafts 4 is the absence of a Search function. For me, this omission weakens the app for pieces any longer than a page. I'm switching to Drafts 5, which has Search and Search-and-Replace, and I'll probably buy the Pro version for its enhanced interface and extra tools. (Hey, the subscription model is the only way professional developers can economically justify long-term support and continued app enhancements. Yes, I like one-and-done software purchases, too, but I also like my software to be supported for many years. The subscription model helps with this, and it is here to stay. If you write daily, as I do, what is a $20 annual subscription? It's a nickel a day — or a half-ounce of your venti Pike Place.)

Lexicosm
,05/30/2018

Good, but missing a piece

Drafts 4 is missing one critical function, but it has satisfied a good chunk of my basic writing needs until now. Clean interface, useful special keyboard row, works well with Apple wireless keyboard. I have tried more than a dozen writing apps, including some of the pricier offerings, but Drafts 4 and 1Writer lead my list. Drafts is not a publishing tool, but it presents a full list of fonts, while 1Writer's developers short-changed that app with fewer than 20 typefaces — about one-third of which are monospace; go figure. So I have used Drafts 4 regularly. My one major criticism of Drafts 4 is the absence of a Search function. For me, this omission weakens the app for pieces any longer than a page. I'm switching to Drafts 5, which has Search and Search-and-Replace, and I'll probably buy the Pro version for its enhanced interface and extra tools. (Hey, the subscription model is the only way professional developers can economically justify long-term support and continued app enhancements. Yes, I like one-and-done software purchases, too, but I also like my software to be supported for many years. The subscription model helps with this, and it is here to stay. If you write daily, as I do, what is a $20 annual subscription? It's a nickel a day — or a half-ounce of your venti Pike Place.)

Clurichaun
,05/26/2018

My Most Used App

Obviously I'm in the minority because I do not use the popular markdown features but it is great for jotting down quick notes that one can save or send as emails, messages, social media posts and even add tasks to Omni Focus. You can use it as a search engine, dictionary, thesaurus, and in conjunction with other apps to create larger, more elaborate compositions. Drafts is really very versatile and there is really no other app that can currently match Draft's abundance of features. The app is also universal which is a huge plus if you toggle back and forth, like myself, between my iPhone 8 and iPad Pro. *UPDATE: Already a whole year since the last review and still, as always, this app is best in class and I try new productivity/note/journal/ writing apps on almost a daily basis and run them through all of the important tests and use Drafts as the measuring rod. For big epic ramblings you want to jot out before sending it as text to be formatted elsewhere or simple notes, messages, emails, social media posts and todos, Drafts has you covered. The keyboard is best in class as well and for those that don’t want to be distracted by toggling around for characters, this keyboard beats them all.

Clurichaun
,05/26/2018

My Most Used App

Obviously I'm in the minority because I do not use the popular markdown features but it is great for jotting down quick notes that one can save or send as emails, messages, social media posts and even add tasks to Omni Focus. You can use it as a search engine, dictionary, thesaurus, and in conjunction with other apps to create larger, more elaborate compositions. Drafts is really very versatile and there is really no other app that can currently match Draft's abundance of features. The app is also universal which is a huge plus if you toggle back and forth, like myself, between my iPhone 8 and iPad Pro. *UPDATE: Already a whole year since the last review and still, as always, this app is best in class and I try new productivity/note/journal/ writing apps on almost a daily basis and run them through all of the important tests and use Drafts as the measuring rod. For big epic ramblings you want to jot out before sending it as text to be formatted elsewhere or simple notes, messages, emails, social media posts and todos, Drafts has you covered. The keyboard is best in class as well and for those that don’t want to be distracted by toggling around for characters, this keyboard beats them all.

Tdubzhere
,03/14/2018

My Poker Dealer

This app is my main driver! I use it for everything. It’s so versatile, especially coupled with TextExpander. Much like a card dealer, it captures everything in one hand (metaphor) and deals the cards of information wherever they need to go. All my personal clubs and professional meeting notes, conversation logs, text messages originate from here. And when my meetings have Tasks that need to move to my task manager software, I use it for that too.

It’s MUCH faster than Evernote in creating and formatting a note (using markdown feature to make it pretty). So, I craft my notes here and then send them to Evernote as my repository.

As a person that uses an IPad for most of the day (recording meeting notes, crafting proposals, managing tasks and scheduling meetings), I’d say that Drafts is a must have app for productivity. I’ll bet I’m only using 50% of what its capable of doing. It’s on my phone and iPad Dock because its so useful.

Tdubzhere
,03/14/2018

My Poker Dealer

This app is my main driver! I use it for everything. It’s so versatile, especially coupled with TextExpander. Much like a card dealer, it captures everything in one hand (metaphor) and deals the cards of information wherever they need to go. All my personal clubs and professional meeting notes, conversation logs, text messages originate from here. And when my meetings have Tasks that need to move to my task manager software, I use it for that too.

It’s MUCH faster than Evernote in creating and formatting a note (using markdown feature to make it pretty). So, I craft my notes here and then send them to Evernote as my repository.

As a person that uses an IPad for most of the day (recording meeting notes, crafting proposals, managing tasks and scheduling meetings), I’d say that Drafts is a must have app for productivity. I’ll bet I’m only using 50% of what its capable of doing. It’s on my phone and iPad Dock because its so useful.